CONTEMPORARY

PAINTING
A contemporary painting is above all the concept and ideas behind the brushstrokes and
the artistic process. Painting attracts many temperaments, and because almost any theme
can be treated through this genre, that painting is the most popular among the fine arts.
 Art production
• Every art-making process is dictated by the artist`s style.
• The growth of a single artist`s way of working can be referred to as “the
evolution of style.”
• Style can be certain technical approach to the making of art.
• Style may be discerned not only by how it looks like but also based on the
quality of the painting.
• The significance of style lies in the fact that it allows the viewer to discern the
meaning behind the subject matter and purpose of the painting.
• Elmer Borlongan`s Driver`s Lounge
• Contemporary painting is made in many styles at one time throughout the globe.
• Stylistic Tendencies- manifested in artwork.
• Stylistic Changes – are apparent in stylistic tendencies, which are attributed to the
creative inventions of artists working at certain times and in specific places
• Pacita Abad
• Born in Batanes and learned art making in New York, USA.
• Trapunto Painting – A technique of stitching and stuffing her painted canvas to give a
three dimensional sculptural effect.
• In 1983, she made more than 110 wayang painting in Indonesia.
• Then she travelled to Papua New Guinea and made 15 large masks in tribal colors,
combination of trapunto technique with local cowry shells, feathers,bones, and
vegetable dyed colors.
• In 1985, she showed 10 of her “political expression” paintings in Manila.
• In 1986, she exhibited 35 “Oriental abstraction” paintings in Hong Kong. In the
following year, she held exhibition of 24 large “canvas collages” in Washington, DC.
She continued to paint, often alternating or combining all of the styles that we have
cited until she passed away in 2004.
• Brenda Fajardo – She maintains her style in tarot cards series through which she takes
historic and mythical stories and renders them in paintings of contemporary
sociopolitical relevance.
• Four styles that are based on stylistic tendencies:
a. objective accuracy
b. formal order
c. Emotions
d. Fantasy
Edmund Burke Feldman`s (1981) Varieties of visual experience guides us in discussing
these styles
 The Style of objective Accuracy
• Objective accuracy is not easy to achieve. Many contemporary artists face the
problem of creating an impression of reality through a selective use of visual facts.
• Sometimes, artists combine their representional skill to create a psychological impact.
In their desire to do so, the representation becomes an impterpretation of reality
which does not necessarily have objective accuracy.
• In objective Accuracy, the artist can do art by being a detached observer or by
employing a selective eye.
 The Artist as Detached Observer
• One characteristics of objective accuracy is the use of technique by the artists where
the artwork seems to have been made by a reporter who is observing a subject, or a
photography using candid camera.
• The artist here presents himself/herself as somebody who selects, arranges, and
represents reality without his/her identity revealed.
• Edgar Degas – painted ballet dancers while in the backstage preparing for their
performance.
• Jose Marie Picornell – exhibits the attitude of objective detachment in his painting.
R.R Landon. His technique that remind us Vincent Van Gogh`s thick and bold brush
strokes, his thick and brightly colored hues enliven the old houses as if recording life
in a neighborhood, he included people walking on the street early morning
 The Artist as Selective Eye
• “Illusion of reality” is created by elimination of details that the eye might see. This
can be “direct pilling up of detail to create an impression of the complexity of the
object” or “ the suppression of detail without the loss of essential traits cannot
succeed unless the artist has observed his/her subject carefully. ”
• Every work represents the end result of a process of observation and simplification.
• Felix Catarata- painted The Laughter with selective eye.
• The artist limited the characters in his painting to happy children and depicted them
skillfully as he knows his subject and technique very well.